KALAMAZOO, MI – It may be time to put away those rocking chairs and list the golf clubs on eBay. Whether driven by economic necessity or a desire to remain engaged, more people are punching clocks well past their 65th birthday. In 2012, one in nine men over age 75 was working, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and one in 20 women over 75 were employed. That was the highest number recorded since the government started keeping those statistics in 1981. "I do think that a lot of people who are approaching later in life these days...

A global activist group is targeting two large hotel chains because they give discounts to members of the National Rifle Association. The organization is putting pressure on the hotel chains to force them to disassociate from the gun-rights group after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre. The group, Avaaz, described as a "a global campaign network of 17 million people" is pressuring "Wyndham Hotels Worldwide – which owns Ramada, Days Inn, Wingate and Super 8 – and Best Western" because both organizations are listed as "friends of the NRA" on the NRA's website. Joseph Huff-Hannon, a senior campaigner at Avaaz,...

Hiring is expected to pick up in the New Year, according to career counselors, but uncertainty surrounding the strength of the economy will likely prevent the hiring season from being as robust as in years past. Last month, the economy added 146,000 jobs, well beyond the expected 85,000 experts predicted. And a strong holiday shopping season is buoying hopes that December will beat expectations as well. "Historically, the first quarter of any fiscal year is always the best time to expect hires because of the normal cycle of business," says Robert Meier, president of Job Market Experts, a Florida-based firm...

Atlanta-based Delta Air Lines, Inc., (NYSE; DAL) received 22,000 applications for about 300 flight attendant jobs after posting the positions outside the company last week. Reuters reports that Chief Executive Officer Richard Anderson told workers in a weekly recorded message that applications arrived at a rate of two per minute. “We are experiencing a phenomenal response to the job posting,” Anderson said. Applicants will be interviewed in January. New employees will begin flying in June in time for the company’s peak travel season...

75 Economic Numbers From 2012 That Are Almost Too Crazy To Believe By Michael Snyder December 20th, 2012 What a year 2012 has been! The mainstream media continues to tell us what a "great job" the Obama administration and the Federal Reserve are doing of managing the economy, but meanwhile things just continue to get even worse for the poor and the middle class. It is imperative that we educate the American people about the true condition of our economy and about why all of this is happening. If nothing is done, our debt problems will continue to get worse,...

The Most Accurate Economist On Wall Street Sees A Big Bullish Wildcard For America Sam RoDec. 21, 2012, 2:05 PM One of the most bullish economic stories in the world has been the recent recovery of the U.S. housing market. Maury Harris, UBS's Chief U.S. Economist, is particularly optimistic considering the snapback of housing formation, which is now back above 1 million per year. We recently had lunch with Harris, who is repeatedly recognized as the most accurate economist on Wall Street and is one of Bloomberg's 50 most influential people in the world. Harris pointed to one housing market...

While much of the nation is still struggling to emerge from a historic housing-market meltdown, the District is reliving its boom days. High rents, low interest rates, low inventory, and a flood of new residents in their 20s and 30s are making parts of the city feel like it’s 2005 again. The median home sale price in the District is up 14 percent from last year, according to RealEstate Business Intelligence (RBI). And the average number of days houses spend on the market has fallen by nearly 30 percent, to 53 days.

The Coming China Economic Crisis Economics / China EconomyDec 20, 2012 - 04:43 AM By: Clif Droke When Bert Dohmen talks, smart investors listen. In 2007 when most investment analysts and economists were downplaying the developing credit market troubles, Bert warned investors that the probability was very high that the troubles would escalate into full-blown crisis and would produce a crash of historic proportions. He chronicled the developing credit crisis in the pages of his newsletter and also published a book in early 2012 entitled, The Coming China Crisis, which provided his insightful views on the emerging crisis in depth....

Down And Out In California By Douglas French 12/20/12 Gas in Vegas is a dollar cheaper a gallon than in the Golden State, or so a friend and recent LA transplant tells me. He went on to say the top tax rate in California is over 13%, while, of course, Nevada has no state income tax. Over dinner at Del Frisco’s, he explained how industries are being ruined by runaway government in his old home state. Nevada would surely benefit from businesses making their escape. Plenty of people are leaving California — nearly 700,000, I read somewhere — however, my...

I’m going to lay out everything you need to know about the fiscal cliff negotiations. After reading this, you can ignore all of the media’s coverage of this topic as well as various politicians’ announcements pertaining to this subject. All you need to know consists of just one sentence. Politicians are in charge of this issue.These are the same folks who haven’t even produced a budget in four years. The same folks who have run $1+ trillion deficits for four years. The same folks who rarely if ever leave office as a result of their fiscal mistakes. In simple terms,...

JIM ROGERS: I'm A Gold Bull, But I Think Prices Will Tumble For A While Longer Rajeshni Naidu-Ghelani, CNBCDecember 20, 2012With gold prices being hammered in recent weeks, and trading near four-month lows on Wednesday, longtime gold bull Jim Rogers is sounding a word of caution, saying it's possible the correction in bullion may continue into the new year. "Just be careful, there're too many bulls, including me, but I'm very cautious," Rogers told CNBC. "Gold is having a correction— it's been correcting for 15-16 months now— which is normal in my view, and it's possible that [the] correction is...

GDP SOARS PAST EXPECTATIONS, RISING 3.1 PERCENT Matthew BoeslerDecember 20, 2012 U.S. economic output rose 3.1 percent in Q3 versus consensus estimates of a 2.8 percent gain. An increase in nonfarm private inventories was one of the largest single drivers of growth, contributing 1.1 percentage points to the number. Personal consumption growth came in at 1.6 percent versus expectations of a 1.4 percent rise. Below, the full text from the BEA: Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States -- increased at an annual rate of 3.1...

Shiller: Housing Hasn’t Necessarily Bottomed Yet 12/20/2012 1:39 AM Cullen Roche In an interview on CNBC earlier today Robert Shiller provided his outlook for housing. Shiller says house prices haven’t necessarily bottomed yet. “A lot of people seem to think that if the market turns around, that means more of the same, meaning another big boom.” … “I don’t think [a boom] is in the cards. We might see home prices go up a little bit, you know, a little bit above inflation, maybe. Not likely that we’ll see a real boom.” “I’d like to people getting optimistic again. Not...

What Is FedEx Telling Us About The Global Economy? 12/20/2012 3:04 AM Cullen Roche Everyone always thinks that Alcoa kicks off the earnings season, but I donÂ’t see it that way. The real earnings season kicks off with FedEx who usually reports well in advance of Alcoa and gives us a much more meaningful look into the state of the economy. So whatÂ’s the global bellwether telling us? Here are some of the key highlights from their earnings report yesterday and the conference call: â– Guidance for the full-year was in-line with expectations after last quarterÂ’s big cut. That could...

What trends will emerge — or accelerate — in the restaurant industry in 2013? Food, marketing, technology, equipment, whatever? We asked some of our most trusted experts for their opinions and came up with this compilation: "The restaurant industry will continue to be challenged by rising commodities prices. Fraud will continue to trend upward with increases in credit card skimming, and theft schemes; and the threat of late night robbery is ever present (particularly as more restaurants add more hours). Mitigating and preventing these losses with sound loss prevention strategies must become a priority to stay competitive in the marketplace."...

Economist John Williams thinks the economy is in worse shape than most people think. In 2013, Williams predicts, “As this goes forward, you’re going to see we’re going to be in a new recession.” The Federal Reserve announced last week it is now printing a total of $85 billion every month to reduce unemployment and stimulate the economy. Williams says, “That’s nonsense. . . . There’s nothing they can do to stimulate the economy.” Williams has long contended the Fed is really just using the weak economy to continue to prop up the banking system. Williams says, “If the Fed...

FREEPORT, Ill.—Titan International Inc. has laid off about 60 workers at its plant in Freeport because of slumping demand for construction tires. The cuts are the last in a series of layoffs that began shortly before the November election at the company's three U.S. tire plants, according to Titan CEO Maurice Taylor Jr. All the cutbacks are part of the firm's construction tire segment. Quincy, Ill.-headquartered Titan's tire factories in Bryan, Ohio, and Des Moines, Iowa, also experienced layoffs during the past two months, about 90 between the two facilities, Taylor said...

GUNDLACH: 'The Real Killer Will Be The Next Recession, And There Will Be One' Sam RoDec. 18, 2012, 5:37 PM Bond god Jeff Gundlach was on Bloomberg Television's "Market Makers" with Erik Schatzker and Stephanie Ruhle. Among other things, Gundlach is concerned about the prospect of another recession, which he thinks will happen thanks to spending cuts and tax hikes. We got out of the last recession thanks to the government racking up debt. The next time around, Gundlach thinks that type of fiscal policy won't be tolerated. Here's Gundlach: The real killer is going to be the next recession....

ROSENBERG: Here Are 6 Dark Economic Clouds That Are Parting Sam RoDecember 18, 2012 Lately, David Rosenberg has adopted a more optimistic tone in his research notes. "While I wouldn't exactly say that I see silver linings, I would say that some clouds certainly appear to be parting," wrote the normally bearish Rosenberg in this morning's Breakfast With Dave note. He offers six such clouds that are parting: 1."...some stabilization of the U.S. data that should prevent further downgrades at least as Q4 GDP consensus call is concerned." 2."...we are moving closer to a deal on the fiscal front. The...

Promises Will Be Broken By Bill Bonner 12/17/12When wealth was easy to identify and easy to control — that is, when it was mostly land — a few insiders could do a fairly good job of keeping it for themselves. The feudal hierarchy gave everybody a place in the system, with the insiders at the top of the heap. But come the industrial revolution and suddenly wealth was accumulating outside the feudal structure. Populations were growing too…and growing restless. The old regime tried to tax this new money, but the new ‘bourgeoisie’ resisted. “No taxation without representation,” was a popular...

A mood of economic gloom hangs over the nation as President Obama and Republican leaders scramble to strike a deficit deal that avoids automatic tax hikes and spending cuts, according to a new poll for The Hill. The poll, conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, found nearly 6-in-10 people (59 percent) feel the country is on the wrong track. It also showed people are deeply pessimistic about their chances for future prosperity, with 54 percent saying they believe their children will be worse off as adults than their parents.The poll results cast a shadow over talks in Washington aimed at averting...

The Psy-Ops War on Preppers: This Has Become a Two-For-the-Price-of-One Crisis Daisy Luther December 17th, 2012 The Organic Prepper This article has been generously shared with our community by long-time contributor Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper. First of all, where is the headquarters of this Â“Doomsday Preppers MovementÂ” IÂ’ve been reading about? And where can I sign up? I didnÂ’t realize there was an organized movement, one deserving of capital letters. Who is the leader of this Â“movementÂ”? IÂ’d like to meet him (or her) immediately! The propaganda machine is not only going after guns in the wake of...

RAIL INDICATORS: The Economy Continues To Soften Cullen Roche, Pragmatic CapitalismDec. 16, 2012, 10:39 AM More weakness in this week’s rail traffic report. The AAR reported a -0.3% reading in intermodal. This is the second consecutive negative weekly reading. This brings the 12 week moving average down to 1.3%. That’s about in-line with the consensus Q4 GDP predictions and indicative of an economy that is growing, but just slightly. Here’s more via AAR: “The Association of American Railroads (AAR) today reported declines in weekly rail traffic for the week ending December 8, 2012, with U.S. railroads originating 292,206 carloads, down...

THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DEFICIT: It's Not Very Big, And There's Only One Way To Close It By Joe WeisenthalDeember 16, 2012 "Trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see." "Hundreds of trillions in unfunded liabilities." "Washington is broke." "Only cranking up taxes, and slashing benefits can save us from leaving a crushing burden on future generations." Those are the kinds of lines you hear from politicians (and even some smart people) all the time as Washington DC debates the Fiscal Cliff and so on. But there's a couple of things you should know about the deficit. One...

China Is Officially Dusting The U.S. In Manufacturing (And That's OK) By Jordan Weissmann Dec 13 2012, 12:20 PM In 2010, China just barely edged out the United States as the world's top manufacturer by output -- a distinction it hadn't held since 1850. Still the two countries were basically neck and neck. No longer. The United Nations has updated its national accounts data to capture 2011, and thanks to China's breakneck growth, its manufacturing output is now leaving ours in a cloud of coal dust, as shown in this graph from AEI's Mark Perry. China's trend line is practically...

OH NO: Roubini Believes In The Housing Recovery, And Is Optimistic About The US Economy Joe WeisenthalDec. 14, 2012, 12:17 PM Uh-oh! Dr. doom isn't sounding a little... positive. He was on Bloomberg Surveillance today. You can watch the video here. This partial transcript was provided to us by Bloomberg: Roubini on whether he's bullish on the United States: "In the long term, I think that the fundamentals of the U.S. are a lot stronger than other advanced countries. In the short run I think we will have another year of very anemic economic growth. Next year we will have...

This list has been getting around the web quite a bit. By most accounts it seems to be written by VtheK, with the original post here.I've only seen it in text, and this is the perfect type of thing to make a graphic for...

The Fed’s Operation Twist was intended to lower long-term interest rates while raising short-term interest rates. But notice that it has worked exactly the opposite. Notice that the yield curve has actually increased in slope over time at the critical Twist dates. With Industrial Production increasing by 1.1% in November (Sandy recovery efforts), it is possible that The Fed will take its foot off the accelerator. On the other hand, capacity utilization has not reached 80% since the Great Recession ended in June 2009. The Fed likes to keep their foot on the accelerator until capacity utilization exceeds 80%, THEN...

SINGAPORE -- While the U.S. unemployment rate "dropped" to 7.7 percent last month -- a figure even the Washington Post acknowledged was due "in large part because the labor force fell by 350,000" -- here in this modern and prosperous city-state of slightly more than 5 million people, unemployment is practically nonexistent at 1.9 percent. In part, this is due to a work ethic that seems to be in the genes here. But there is something else at work that should astound Washington politicians struggling with expensive "entitlement" programs and with those who receive them. The Economist wrote about it...

It is the ultimate example of how you reap what you sow: Huge numbers of American workers who voted for Obama are now seeing their own jobs slashed below 30 hours a week as employers desperately try to avoid "Obamacare bankruptcy." Obamacare mandates for businesses only apply to those working 30 hours a week or more, and while many businesses do not want to cut workers' hours, they are being forced to in order to stay afloat. This necessary action is causing businesses to lose money and become less competitive while at the same time destroying American jobs. Some businesses...

Menards is blaming President Obama for the company's decision to scrap plans for building a store in Missouri, saying the president is "scaring the dickens" out of small businesses. The Eau Claire, Wis.-based home improvement chain said it won't build a planned store in O’Fallon, Mo., because of economic uncertainty...

As the president gets closer to achieving his most cherished political ambition — raising taxes on the top earners in our country — I've started to wonder what satisfaction he, and those he's convinced this is a good idea, will actually experience. Forget all the silly speeches. By any seriously objective standard, the president's tax increases will do little or nothing to reduce his deficits or his approaching legacy of extraordinary national debt. Without increasing taxes more broadly and without structurally reforming our entitlement programs, which now appears likely, the president's plan changes virtually nothing about the direction or funding...

For 37 years, Burt Patterson has owned the pharmacy named after him. That is now coming to an end. For Patterson, it was simply time to retire. "At a certain age, everybody has to come to grips with the fact that you can't keep going forever," Patterson said. He also said uncertainly about the future of health care in America also played a role in his decision. "The potential for a small pharmacy surviving in the coming years under Obamacare is going to be very difficult. And again, at my age, I just did not want to risk my retirement,"...

Time for another motor in the house. Last vehicle I bought I ran by the Freeper Auto-Guys and it worked great. Time for a different kind of transportation. Looking at a new two or four door Golf TDI in Red with manual transmission. No sunroof, no nav package. Test drove it twice and like the manual transmission. Dealer giving 300K warranty with serviceing Q10K at dealership. Your thoughts.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve ramped up its stimulus to the economy on Wednesday, expressing disappointment with the pace of recovery in employment as contentious U.S. budget talks heighten uncertainty about the outlook. The central bank replaced a more modest stimulus program due to expire at year-end with a fresh round of Treasury purchases that will increase its balance sheet. It committed to monthly purchases of $45 billion in Treasuries on top of the $40 billion per month in mortgage-backed bonds it started buying in September. In a surprise move, the Fed also adopted numerical thresholds for policy, a...

JAMIE DIMON: The Table Is Set For Booming 4% Growth, And 200K New Jobs Per Month Joe WeisenthalDecember 12,2012Jamie Dimon is on LIVE at the Dealbook conference talking fiscal cliff, the economy, and public policy. We're taking notes during his Q&A. Anything not in direct quotes. -- Says odds are politicians will do something between December 21 and December 28. -- On the impact of going over the cliff it might not be horrible... but it might be. -- 'We are one decision away from restoring our moral and fiscal authority in the world.... let's just do it."-- With...

It's Time To Tell Paulson, Bernanke, And Geithner: You Were Right And We Were Wrong — Thank You For Saving The Economy Mark Dow, Behavioral MacroDec. 11, 2012, 2:07 PM URL Mark Dow is a proprietary trader and author of the blog Behavioral Macro. The U.S. Treasury this morning rid itself of the last piece of exposure it had to AIG, the insurer at the center of the 2008 financial crisis. Both the Fed and the U.S. Treasury intervened heavily during the crisis, with the ostensible objective of stabilizing the system and circuit-breaking the self-reinforcing fear that was already rippling...

India will be the fastest-growing market, with exports to the South Asian nation expanding at an annual rate of 12% between 2016 and 2020, and staying in the double digits beyond then. Vietnam is another strong future trading partner for the United States, with double-digit annualized trade growth forecast over the next five to 15 years. Other promising new markets in the future include Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Mexico and Poland.

he Good: Job openings in construction rose to +48 after several months of little progress. The Bad: The Small Business Optimism Index fell to its lowest point since March 2010. The Ugly: The Investors Business Daily (IBD) and TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence (TIPP) economic optimism index fell to 45.1 in December, down 3.5 points from a month earlier. A reading over 50 indicates a positive outlook while a reading below 50 signals a negative outlook. On the ugly side, the USA trade balance with the Pacific Rim (China, Japan, etc) fell as well. On the mortgage/MBS side, Ginnie Mae 15 year...

Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It’s a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Obama’s health care overhaul. The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers...

Bonnie Gray knows there are people out there who are worse off than she is. After all, at least she has a job. It’s just not a full-time gig. Like many other Americans, she works part time and it’s barely enough to pay for food, fuel and shelter. Millions of Americans were working part time in November but they would like to have been working full time. These so-called “involuntary part-time workers” are an example of some of the stubborn pockets of weakness that remain in the labor market even as the jobs picture improves very slowly. The Bureau of...

Google avoided about $2 billion in global income taxes last year by shifting $9.8 billion in revenue into a Bermuda shell company, Bloomberg reported. That level is almost double the total from three years ago, Bloomberg said, citing a Nov. 21 regulatory filing by a Google subsidiary in the Netherlands. And it allowed Google to cut its overall tax rate almost in half. Google's action -- moving about 80 percent of its total pretax profit from 2011 to tax-free Bermuda -- isn't illegal. On the contrary, many companies have taken similar steps in recent years to avoid paying steep taxes....

OK, everyone, buckle up. This is going to be a bumpy ride. First off, I would like to turn to our eventual funding crisis. Yes, I have been talking about this for some time, and no, it hasn't started yet. But it will. One day the markets will take the printing press away from central bankers by spurning their bonds, and governments needing to get their debt funded will see rates rise dramatically. Whether it will start here, in Japan or somewhere else I don't know, nor do I know when it will start. But I do know that the...

And we thought last month's delayed foodstamp data was bad. The just reported foodstamp number for September was a doozy, with 607,544 new Americans becoming eligible for foodstamps, as a record 47.7 million Americans are now living in poverty at least according to the USDA. The monthly increase was the highest since May 2011, and with August's 421K new impoverished America, over 1 million Americans made the EBT card their new best friend. It is unclear just which atmospheric phenomenon will get the blame for this unprecedented surge in poverty, which comes at a time when the pre-election economic data...

Will the U.S. Housing Market Recovery Continue? Housing-Market / US HousingDec 08, 2012 - 06:56 AM By: InvestmentContrarian Sasha Cekerevac writes: We have all heard the recent news that the housing market recovery is well on its way off the bottom. With home prices continuing to move up, many are questioning the long-term strength of the housing market. While there is no question that home prices have hit the lowest point and won’t return to those levels again, many are worried that they missed the housing market recovery, as prices have already risen significantly. I think there’s a few more...